preload

I recently tried preload, an adaptive readahead daemon designed for Linux operating systems, and was impressed with its capabilities. This clever tool monitors the applications used by users and analyses this data to predict what applications they may use in the future. By fetching these binaries and their dependencies into memory beforehand, preload enables faster startup times for these applications.

One of the standout features of this daemon is that it runs as a daemon and gathers information about processes running on the system and shared-objects that they use. It saves this information to a file that it uses to keep consistent performance across different system runs.

To run preload, the easiest way is to use the provided initscript. While those who use the RPM package will have an easier time, those who don't will need to manually add the service and enable it. This can be done using commands such as `/sbin/chkconfig --add preload`.

To get the most out of preload, it's recommended to run it for several boots before expecting accurate predictions. The daemon needs to analyze any application at least twice before it will start predicting how it will be used.

One thing worth noting is that the latest release includes a fix for state parsing issues. Overall, I'm really pleased with the performance and functionality offered by preload. It was a valuable addition to my Linux setup and I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to optimize their system startup times.